2009 Language and Metalanguage Key Issues in Emotion Research

http://emr.sagepub.com Emotion Review DOI: 10.1177/1754073908097175 2009; 1; 3 Emotion Review Anna Wierzbicka Language and Metalanguage: Key Issues in Emotion Research http://emr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/1/1/3 The online version of this article can be found at: Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com On behalf of: International Society for Research on Emotion can be found at:Emotion Review Additional services and information for http://emr.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Email Alerts: http://emr.sagepub.com/subscriptions Subscriptions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navReprints: http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.navPermissions: http://emr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/1/1/3 Citations by on April 21, 2010 http://emr.sagepub.comDownloaded from Super Title Language and Metalanguage: Key Issues in Emotion Research Anna Wierzbicka School of Language Studies, The Australian National University, Australia Emotion Review Vol. 1, No. 1 (Jan. 2009) 3–14 © 2009 SAGE Publications and The International Society for Research on Emotion ISSN 1754-0739 DOI: 10.1177/1754073908097175 http://emr.sagepub.com Exploring Human Emotions through Universal Human Concepts I want to focus on two points in this article. First, how difficult it is to understand, and to describe, human emotions across languages and cultures. Second, how the use of the methodology developed in linguistic semantics and known as NSM (Natural SemanticMetalanguage) can help us to understand human emotions better—especially emotions of people from other cultures, but also those of people from our own cultural sphere. I will take as my starting point the account of Jesus’ emo- tions given in St. Mark’s Gospel, in two different translations, one English and one Russian. This account is a unique example of a description of human emotions which has been rendered in hundreds of different languages, often with considerable differ- ences in the interpretation and emphasis. Since the story, the situation, and the context are the same, the different versions offer us an opportunity for a unique case study, testing the accessibility of human emotional experience to culture- independent interpretation and understanding (see the second section, “Jesus’ Suffering in Gethsemane”). It seems hardly necessary to argue at great length that simple words like sad and afraid, in English, are very crude tools for describing and interpreting the whole range of human emotions— even among native speakers of the same language (cf. Barrett, 2006; Barrett, Lindquist, & Gendron, 2007; Barrett, Mesquita, Ochsner, &Gross, 2007; see alsoWierzbicka, 1973). But if this is so for peo- ple who share the same linguistic and cultural background, it is much more so for those who do not—as anyone who has extended cross-linguistic and cross-cultural experience would know. In fact, people who live their lives through two languages know well that when they try to describe the same experience in their two different languages they are often forced to present it differently in each, because emotion words in the two languages do not match (e.g., Besemeres, 2002; Besemeres & Wierzbicka, 2007; Pavlenko, 2005, 2006). Cross-linguistic semantics agrees with the literature document- ing the experience of bilinguals on this point. For example, seman- tic studies show that Russian does not have an exact equivalent of the English word sad, although it has two words usually trans- lated into English as sad, each with a somewhat different meaning (Wierzbicka, 1998a, see also J. D.Apresjan, 1979). Malay doesn’t Abstract Building on the author’s earlier work, this paper argues that language is a key issue in understanding human emotions and that treat- ing English emotion terms as valid analytical tools continues to be a roadblock in the study of emotions. Further, it shows how the methodology developed by the author and colleagues, known as NSM (from Natural Semantic Metalanguage), allows us to break free of the “shackles” (Barrett, 2006) of English psychological terms and explore human emotions from a culture-independent perspective. The use of NSM makes it possible to study human emotions from a genuinely cross-linguistic and cross-cultural, as well as a psychological, perspective and thus “opens up new possibilities for the scientific understanding of subjectivity and psychologi- cal experience” (Goddard, 2007). Keywords “basic emotions,” emotions and cultural scripts, language in emotion research, new ways of studying subjectivity, NSM methodology Author note: I would like to thank Cliff Goddard for his extensive and extremely helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. I am also grateful to the anonymous reviewers of Emotion Review, whose suggestions and queries have helped me to improve this article. Corresponding author: Anna Wierzbicka, School of Language Studies, Baldessin Precinct Building (#110), The Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australia. Email: anna.wierzbicka@anu.edu.au by on April 21, 2010 http://emr.sagepub.comDownloaded from 4 Emotion Review Vol. 1 No. 1 have a word matching in meaning the English word surprised, because the closest word it has always implies something bad, whereas in English “surprise” can be bad, good, or neutral (Goddard, 1997, 2007). Many languages don’t have a word matching in meaning the English word happy, and, for example, the closest counterparts of happy in German or in Russian imply an emotion more intense than that described by the present-day English happy (e.g., Levontina & Zalizniak, 2001; Wierzbicka, 2004). Examples could be multiplied. (e.g., V. J. Apresjan, 1997; Goddard, 1991, 1996, 1997; Harkins & Wierzbicka, 2001; Wierzbicka, 1992a, 1999; see also Russell, 1991). Contemporary psychology, like present-day science in general, is dominated by English, and it is common practice for scholars to write about human emotions using English emotion terms, as if these English words could give us an accurate, objective and culture-independent perspective on human emotional experience in general. The justification usually offered for this practice is that English emotion terms can be used as “scientific concepts,” inde- pendent of ordinary English usage. In fact (as I will discuss more fully later), such “scientific” concepts, which Anglophone schol- ars derive, unwittingly, from their native language, preclude, rather than facilitate, a culture-independent perspective: in reality, any discussion of human emotions which relies on English emo- tion terms is necessarily Anglocentric (Wierzbicka, 2006). A common response to such a critique is that “what psychol- ogists are interested in is not emotion words but emotions as such.” This response misses the point that we need to understand emotion words in order to have any chance of understanding “emotions as such.” Much of the emotion research so far has been heavily influenced by the folk concepts of emotion encoded in the English lexicon; and so-called “scientific concepts of emo- tion” tend in fact to derive, unwittingly, from such folk concepts. This does not mean that it is impossible to talk about human emotions in English without an Anglocentric bias. As dozens of descriptive studies in the NSM framework (see below) have demonstrated, it is entirely possible to do so—if instead of rely- ing on English emotion terms, all of which are language- and culture-specific, one relies on a methodology based on univer- sal human concepts. This methodology, developed and tested extensively over many years, is known as NSM (Natural Semantic Metalanguage). The Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) is a mini- language which corresponds to the intersection—the common core—of all languages. This intersection of all languages has been discovered empirically, through extensive cross-linguistic studies undertaken by many scholars over many years (see e.g., Goddard & Wierzbicka, 1994, 2002). Describing languages and cultures in NSM, and through NSM, means describing them in terms of simple and universal human concepts, which can be found as words (or word-like elements) in all languages (see Table 1). This applies to emotions as much as to any other domain: by using NSM, we can explore human emotions from a universal point of view, independent of any particular lan- guages and cultures. (For references, see the NSM homepage: www.une.edu.au/lcl/nsm/index.php.) This paper is organized as follows. In the second section, “Jesus’ Suffering in Gethsemane,” I will illustrate, with reference to Jesus in Gethsemane, how different languages impose differ- ent interpretations on human emotions, and how NSM methodol- ogy allows us to explore emotions without imposing on them a culture-specific, Anglocentric interpretation. In the third section, “Reading Human Faces,” I will examine the theory of “basic emotions,” allegedly associated with biologically pre- programmed facial expressions, and I will contrast itsAnglocentric slant with the culture-independent NSM approach to emotions. In the fourth section, “‘Universal Themes’: ‘Sadness’ and ‘Loss’,” I will discuss the culture-specific character of so-called “universal themes,” such as the theme of “loss,” allegedly associated with the “universal emotion” of sadness. In the fifth section, “Reification of Concepts Derived from English,” I will argue that, apart from “basic emotions” and “universal themes” advanced by Paul Ekman (and others), several other prominent psychological approaches to human emotions are also affected by reification of concepts derived from English. In the sixth section, “What Are ‘Subjective Feeling States’ and How Can They Be Explored,” I will show how “subjective feeling states” can be explored through prototypical cognitive scenarios formulated in universal human concepts. In my concluding remarks I will draw the dif- ferent threads of the preceding discussion together to conclude that language is a key issue in emotion research. Jesus’ Suffering in Gethsemane Jesus’ emotions in Gethsemane have been described in well over a thousand languages. They have also been portrayed in many paintings. So what exactly did Jesus feel—as far as we know—when he was praying in Gethsemane anticipating his “Passion” and crucifixion? Mark’s Gospel (The Revised Standard Version) describes it like this: 33. And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. 34.And he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death, remain here, and watch.” (Mark 14: 33–34) In a recent Russian translation by Sergej Averincev (2007), however, the impression conveyed is significantly different: 33.... I nacal On cuvstvovat’uzas i tomlenie, 34. i govorit im: “V smertnoj muke duša Moja; pobud’te zdes’ i bodrstvujte.” The Russian word užas implies something like a combination of terror and horror (and tomlenie implies something like tor- ment). This is a very different interpretation of Jesus’ emotions from that implied by the English adjectives distressed and troubled. Trying to get closer to Mark’s intended meaning, one could ask, of course: which of the two interpretations corresponds more closely to the Greek original? But the Greek version uses two verbs, ekthambeīsthai and ade¯monein, which don’t have exact semantic equivalents in either English or Russian. Furthermore, Mark was not a native speaker of Greek, and the meanings he sought to convey are likely to have been colored by his native Aramaic, and by the Hebrew of his own religious tradition.We don’t know exactly, then, what precisely he sought to convey by the Greek words which he chose. by on April 21, 2010 http://emr.sagepub.comDownloaded from Wierzbicka Language and Metalanguage 5 As is often the case in interpreting the Gospels, here, too, we can expect some help from the context—both linguistic and non-linguistic. To start with the non-linguistic context, we will note, first, that according to Mark’s version, Jesus “fell on the ground and prayed”; and second, that in Luke’s version, his sweat “became like great drops of blood falling down upon the ground” (Luke 22:44, Revised Standard Version). Thus, what- ever exactly the two Greek verbs used by Mark meant at the time when he was writing his Gospel, in interpreting Jesus’ emotions in Gethsemane we need to keep our interpretation consistent with the information about his falling to the ground to pray and about the heavy drops of his sweat falling down to the ground, like drops of blood. As for the linguistic context, of crucial importance here is Mark’s verse 34, in which Jesus himself describes his own emo- tional state. But of course Jesus’words, too, come to us through Mark’s Greek. As already mentioned, the Revised Standard Version translates these words as: “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death.” The Russian counterpart of this verse (in Averincev’s trans- lation) is “v smertnoj muke duša moja,” roughly, “my soul is in mortal agony,” so again, it is quite different in meaning from the Revised Version. What was Jesus really saying—“I am in agony” or “I am very sorrowful”? The word sorrow implies, roughly speaking, thinking about something very sad, whereas the Russian phrase smertnaja muka implies terrible suffering both physical and psychological, and not just mental suffering. In the English version, it is Jesus’ sorrow which seems to him so great that he could die from it; in the Russian version, on the other hand, it is his total suffering—his pain, his agony—which seems to him so great that he could die from it. These are very different images of Jesus, of his words and of his attitude. We must ask again: what does Jesus say in the Greek origi- nal (in Mark’s version)? Here, one problem is that the model of the person assumed in the Greek version is different from that assumed by either English or Russian. In the Greek version, Jesus says that his “psyche¯” is “perilypos.” This raises two questions: what is psyche¯ and what is perilypos? As the use of perilypos in other parts of the New Testament makes clear, perilypos does not correspond exact- ly to any one of the English words chosen for it in the Revised Standard Version (“sad, sorrow, distressed”). But neither does it correspond exactly to Averincev’s v smertnoj muke (“in mortal pain, in agony”). There is simply no word in either English or Russian which would match the meaning of the Greek word perilypos—or the emotion apparently attributed to Jesus by Mark. Furthermore, whatever the exact meaning of the adjective perilypos (as intended by Mark), this feeling is attributed not to Jesus’ “soul” (as the Revised Standard Version puts it) but to his “psyche¯”—and for “psyche¯” there is no exact word in English either (Wierzbicka, 1992a). The Greek construct psyche¯ invoked in Jesus’ words (in Mark’s version) implies that he is suffering a great pain in the core of his being: not just in his “soul” (as opposed to his “body”) but in his total being. Presumably, this is the basis for Averincev’s translation smertnaja muka “mortal pain, agony,” which implies an emotion more total, and less thought-based, than sorrow. Table 1. Universal human concepts—English exponents. Substantives I, YOU, SOMEONE, SOMETHING/THING, PEOPLE, BODY Relational substantives: KIND, PART Determiners: THIS, THE SAME, OTHER/ELSE Quantifiers: ONE, TWO, MUCH/MANY, SOME, ALL Evaluators: GOOD, BAD Descriptors: BIG, SMALL Mental predicates: THINK, KNOW, WANT, FEEL, SEE, HEAR Speech: SAY, WORDS, TRUE Actions, events, movement, contact: DO, HAPPEN, MOVE, TOUCH Location, existence, BE (SOMEWHERE), THERE IS possession, specification: HAVE, BE (SOMEONE/SOMETHING) Life and death: LIVE, DIE Time: WHEN/TIME, NOW, BEFORE, AFTER, A LONG TIME, A SHORT TIME, FOR SOME TIME, MOMENT Space: WHERE/PLACE, HERE, ABOVE, BELOW, FAR, NEAR, SIDE, INSIDE Logical concepts: NOT, MAYBE, CAN, BECAUSE, IF Intensifier, augmentor: VERY, MORE Similarity: LIKE Note. Primes exist as the meanings of lexical units (not at the level of lexemes). Exponents of primes may be words, bound morphemes, or phrasemes. They can be formally complex. They can have different morphosyntactic properties, including word-class, in different languages. They can have combinatorial variants (allolexes). Each prime has well-specified syntactic (combinatorial) properties. by on April 21, 2010 http://emr.sagepub.comDownloaded from 6 Emotion Review Vol. 1 No. 1 So what exactly was Jesus (as portrayed by Mark) saying about his psyche¯—his self, the core of his being—when he said that it was “perilypos even to death,” or “mortally perily- pos”? It is clear that no single word in English—for example, sad, sorrowful, or distressed—can capture this meaning, and neither can any combination of such words, because each of these words would bring with it its own additional compo- nents not included in the Greek meaning. We can, however, try to capture this meaning with precision by means of a set of simpler semantic components formulated in universal human concepts, that is, in NSM-English, as in the following (partial) formula: [A] And he said to them: my “psyche¯” is “perilypos” [“very sad, deeply distressed”], “even to death” (Mark 14:34). = and he said to them something like this: “something very bad is happening to me now I feel something very bad because of this I can’t not feel like this I can’t not think like this now: ‘I can die because of this’” Let us now return to Mark’s verse 33, where Jesus is described (in Greek) as ekthambeisthai. The Greek–English Lexicon of the New Testament (Newman, 1971) glosses this verb as “to be moved to a relatively intense emotional state because of some- thing causing great surprise or perplexity, be overwhelmed, be alarmed”; and the adjective ekthambos as “utterly astonished.” Obviously, the English word distressed, chosen by the Revised Standard Version to translate the Greek word, lacks one component reflected in such glosses: that of unexpected- ness. Nor is the meaning of the Greek original adequately cap- tured by the Russian word užas (“terror/horror”), chosen in Averincev’s translation. Užas is a very dramatic word. It sug- gests that the emotion was very intense and “overpowering,” and it clearly includes some components absent from the Greek ekthambeisthai. Jesus prayed: “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet not what I want but what you want” (New Revised Standard Version). Užas, like terror, implies an unqualified “I don’t want this to happen,” and this doesn’t quite seem to match the combination of a desire to be spared and a willingness not to be spared if this is God’s will. Thus, both the Russian word uzas and the English word dis- tressed are too blunt as tools for analyzing Jesus’ emotions in Gethsemane. A more fine-grained interpretation, compatible with all the linguistic and extra-linguistic clues, can be given in the form of a set of components formulated in simple and uni- versal human concepts, such as the following: [B] Jesus began to “ekthambeisthai” and “ade¯monein” (Mark 14:33) = after this, Jesus was thinking like this for some time: “I know: something very bad will happen to me in a short time I feel something very bad because of this I can’t not think like this now: ‘I don’t want it to happen’ I didn’t know before that it would be like this” when he was thinking like this, he felt something very bad because of this, like someone can feel when they think like this for some time This formula is not offered here as an explication of the Greek words as such but as my hypothesis about Mark’s intended mes- sage about Jesus’ emotions, as he understood them. It is meant of course as an approximation, but what I am seeking here is the closest possible approximation compatible with the linguistic and extra-linguistic context and fr